


A Sheppard Family Secret

by mandykaysfic



Series: 12 days of Christmas 2014 [11]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Family Secrets, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 15:52:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6963220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandykaysfic/pseuds/mandykaysfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Patrick Sheppard's funeral, Dave discovers something about his father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sheppard Family Secret

**Author's Note:**

> On the 9th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me  
> ....nine revealed secrets

He stared at his hand, willing it to stop shaking as he poured two fingers of whiskey into a tumbler. He was a Sheppard, damn it, and president of the company, albeit the new president. His father's funeral had been…not at all what Dave had anticipated.

Patrick Sheppard's fatal heart attack had been completely unexpected. He'd passed his annual physical with flying colors less than three months earlier, or so he'd led Dave to believe. Retirement only appeared in his vocabulary when it related to others and he'd made no secret it would be twenty years before Dave could expect to take over the presidency. Dave had been fine with that; he ran the finance department with smooth efficiency and consequently enjoyed the leisure time available to him that his father never seemed to have. He wondered briefly whether he should have insisted on shouldering some of the demands the top job made on Patrick, but he dismissed the thought as quickly as it surfaced. 

He'd been surprised when his brother arrived with his _civilian contractor_ friend; he hadn't been sure John would get the news of their father's death in time. Then the pair of them had disappeared from the wake before the end and without saying good-bye, even though John had agreed to talk with him. That, however, hadn't been the reason why he downed the whiskey and poured another. John wasn't the only member of the family with secrets; it seemed his father had managed to keep a doozy hidden from Dave for many years.

Patrick Sheppard had been not only the president of Sheppard Industries, the successful company with an enviable reputation throughout the world, he'd also founded a small, very private company which focused on _inventions_. 

Dave put down his glass and rubbed his temples. The documentation regarding the number of patents with restricted publication clauses he'd discovered had made his head ache. He'd known his father loved action movies, the James Bond franchise in particular, but he'd never pictured Patrick Sheppard as the American equivalent of Q.


End file.
